Pilgrimage to Bornean Peacock Pheasant's shrine.

I visited Sungai Wain Protection Forest in Kalimantan Timur, Indonesian Borneo at the end of March 2014 to try my luck on the super rare endemic Bornean Peacock Pheasant Polyplectron schleiermacheri. I only present some images for the trip here, further info on Sungai Wain Protection Forest are readily available from the Internet.

We flew from Tawau to Tarakan via Maswing and took a domestic flight from Tarakan to Balikpapan, the rest of the journey was by road.

Aerial view of areas around Tarakan on approach, I think these are aquaculture ponds.

 Warning sign before approaching PERTAMINA's water reservoir.  

 PERTAMINA's water reservoir in front of the Kampung Sungai Wain entrance to the Protection forest, I was told this was built during the Dutch colonial era.

 Notice board at the entrance of Protection forest, listing the prohibited activities.

 Boardwalk over peat swamp at the entrance.

 Another section of Boardwalk.

 Resting platform. We need to cross the boardwalk before reaching the forest proper.

 First camp, where we stop to rest and eat.

 Our homestay house.

 View of Kampung Sungai Wain, near the entrance to the Protection Forest.

 View from the back of our homestay house.

Mobile hawker of Sungai Wain

 Malaysian Honeyguide Indicator archipelagicus, a rare bird in Sabah, my 1st lifer.

 Garnet Pitta Pitta granatina, a bird that does not occur in Sabah, another lifer.

 Plantive Cuckoo Cacomantis merulinus

 Dusky Munia Lonchura fuscan, a Bornean endemic.

 Abott's Babbler Trichastoma abbotti, my third lifer. This species is super rare in Sabah.Note its longer tail and different call as both this and the very similar looking Horsfield's Babbler Trichastoma sepiarium occur here.

 Abbott's Babbler

Horsfield's Babbler, sharing similar habitats with Abbott's Babbler, note its short tail.

 Sooty-headed Bulbul Pycnonotus aurigaster, another lifer. This species was first recorded in Borneo in Palangkarya, Kalimantan Tengah in 1984, it has now established itself in south-east Borneo.

Little Spiderhunter Arachnothera longirostra.

 Female Borneo Peacock Pheasant, heavily cropped from the image below (head is blocked).

 Uncropped image of the above image, you can see twigs, leaves, and branches working against you while you try to take a clear shot of the pheasant.

 Uncropped image showing an out-of-focus male.

 Crop of the above image, you can see the unmistakable head pattern of the male Peacock Pheasant here, with its white throat and red eye patch.

This is an in-focus shot of the back and tail of the male with its head blocked from view.

The star of the trip is the Peacock Pheasant, Sungai Wain is may be the easiest place in Borneo to see it. To take a good photo is another matter altogether as all ground birds are tough to photograph, they are more often than not blocked by foliage, twigs, undergrowth and stumps. 

Happy birding.

Photodocument of Wild Birds of Borneo

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A snap shot of caged birds in Balikpapan, Indonesian Borneo

I was in Sungai Wain, Balikpapan, Kalimantan Timur, Indonesian Borneo in the last week of March 2014 hoping to photograph the Borneo Peacock Pheasant Polyplectron schleiermacheri, which eventually proved to be too elusive. However, the trip was a thought-provoking eye-opener in another aspect of Bornean birds.

On the way to the airport on our way back, we stopped at two places where cage birds were openly on sale, one was housed in a building while the other was made up of a few stalls with birds in cages piled on top of each other on mobile carts.

Here are some images I managed to take of these two places. It is sad to note that I saw a few "lifers" there, being birds that I have yet to photograph in the wild but seen here inside cages.

 This is the shop, there is a Long-tailed Shrike Lanius schach in one of the hanging cages in the fore ground.  

 Bold-striped Tit-babbler Macronous bornensis .

A cage of Yellow-vented Bulbul Pycnonotus goiavier and Sooty-headed Bulbul Pycnonotus aurigaster. The wild population of the latter in pockets in Kalimantan must have originated from cage birds.

 There are many caged White-rumped Shama Copsychus malabaricus , that's why it is so hard to see one in the wild there.

 

Mobile stalls, the building in the background is also in this trade as the cages are visible in this picture.

Mobile stalls from another angle.

Chestnut-cheeked Starlings Sturnus philippensis that will not be returning to their home, sandwiched by cages of various doves and pigeons.

Cages and cages on top of each other.

Chestnut-capped Thrush Zoothera interpres, I have yet to photograph one in the wild.

 There are a lot of Chestnut-cheeked Starlings.

Yellow-vented Bulbuls.

 Large Green-pigeon Treron capellei, I have yet to photograph one in the wild.

 This is a Pied Starling Gracupica contra, a bird not in the Bornean Checklist.

 Chectnut-backed Scimitar-babbler Pomatorhinus mantanus, which is not an easy bird to see in the wild.

 

 This is definitely a non-Bornean species, I suspect it is from Java but have no resources to check what it is.

 Surprisingly, Large-billed Blue Flycatcher Cyornis caerulatus also can be caged.

This is Yellowed Bellied White-eye or Lemon-bellied White-eye Zosterops chloris, mentioned in both Phillipps and Myers as only found in Karitmata, Matasirih and Marabatuan, which are islands off the coast of south and west of Borneo. Here they are, quite a few of them in cages for sale. 

I even saw a fire-tufted Barbet Psilopogon pyrolophus, which is not in the Bornean checklist,  for sale.

On casual conversation with the traders, we were told that some of the birds were imported from Java,  which explained the origin of those non-Bornean birds on sale. 

Considering the deep-rooted tradition of trapping and caging birds in this part of the world, I believe this is a negligible and immaterial part of the huge cage bird trade in Kalimantan. I can't help but keep thinking about the number of birds species not in our traditional checklist imported to the island of Borneo which managed to escaped and gone feral in the whole of Kalimantan over these years, bear in mind that Kalimantan occupies the largest part of the island covering 72.57% of the land area. 

A major revision to the Bornean Checklist might be required if we have adequate data from that part of Borneo.

Happy birding.

Photodocument of Wild Birds of Borneo

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